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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#571

Post by lapcat »

smsm42 wrote: post #545
lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

You can't force democracy on people. US - as a state and as private persons (Soros in particular) invested a lot into trying to build up democratic institutions (at least as they understood them) in Russia. It didn't work, and in part it didn't work because Russians seemed not to value the same things Americans value. Now, I am talking in generic, in broad strokes - which is never 100% true for any society, it's alwa…

> You can't force democracy on people.

The Marshall Plan was economic recovery assistance, and it went to allies as well occupied territories.

"The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total). The next highest contributions went to France (18%)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Russia had already implemented its own elections after the fall of the USSR. The US didn't need to force that. The point is just to support Russia in its transition, not to force it.

You speak of the Weimar Republic. The lack of a "Marshall Plan" after WWI and the harsh conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles were a big factor in the failure of the Weimar Republic.

> At least significant part of Russians seems to be ok with having no free speech, no real elections and no independent judiciary or other democratic institutions

This is true also in the United States...

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#572

Post by coffee_beqn »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #440
cronix wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to take away from that awesome concert, but Lars has stated several times it was closer to 500k, but somehow the number keeps growing... > However, Lars explained in the conversation that he doesn’t know the exact number how many people were in the concert, but he heard at the time that there were half a million people attended the show. > “Listen, it may go up by 100,000 people each year! I heard at the time it…

I just went with the wikipedia article which has two sources, both just newspaper articles, so who knows. It's not implausible though. There've been a handful of concerts as large as 3 million apparently. That just boggles my mind. Can you imagine standing on a stage like that?

Can you imagine having to go to the bathroom in the middle of that horde

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#573

Post by fsckboy »

groby_b wrote: post #423
insane_dreamer wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeltsin is very much to blame. Russia would have transitioned much better if Gorbachev had been the head of the post-USSR Russia instead of Yeltsin. That said, the former Soviet Republics that transitioned well are those that were smaller, already edging their way towards a market economy before the USSR collapse, and received substantial help from (and eventually joined) the EU (Baltics, Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep.,…

You're aware that the "much better" transition of the GDR was still a giant disaster, yes?( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15487733.2020.1... ) And the GDR still got the best deal of all of the ones you mentioned. But there's massive inequality, massive unemployment. (And as a result, extremism, political fatigue, corruption, etc)

pointing out problems that places have after they've experienced 45-70 years of domination by Soviet style authoritarian regimes (and before which they were neither democracies on a shining hill) is not at all making a case that the post soviet transitions were flawed, just that they were not miraculous.

to be convincing you have to point out things that the transitioners could have done that would have worked better, but even the best experts in the world did not know any better than what was tried, so that's going to be a tough case to make.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#574

Post by hetman »

htowieuro234 wrote: post #472
lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

You realize it was the Americans under Yeltsin who basically destroyed Russian economy right ? I'm fairly sure Russian children weren't prostituting themself because the US "missed their mark" and were led astray by "corrupt Asiatics" (not being facile here; this is standard argument put out by Western "intellectuals" today - which says a lot about the deep hate for Asia.). I imagine Russians slyly and sarcastically…

What serious intellectuals in the West are making statements about "corrupt Asiatics" today? This is clearly taken directly from some kind of propagandist talking sheet because anyone making this claim clearly understands nothing about the West of today.

It's ironic that we can talk about Western petulance but ignore the petulance of the Russian Federation when their outrageous demands were not met by their neighbours.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#575

Post by hetman »

hparadiz wrote: post #356
lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

Selling off the communist factories was a huge mistake. Should have followed the Chinese model of slowly introducing capitalist things into the existing economy. Instead they laid everyone off and of course everything went to shit.

That really worked out for China didn't it. Under Xi Jinping there's a resurgence of Communist ideology and not at all the gradual acclimation to Western style democracy everyone had expected.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#577

Post by hetman »

lapcat wrote: post #502
kemiller wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how a Marshall plan would have worked since, unlike Germany, we were not occupiers. Our ability to reshape their system was limited. Not that we didn’t bubble things.

"Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed toward the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total). The next highest contributions went to France" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

The UK was already aligned with US ideology.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#578

Post by sologoub »

paganel wrote: post #221
lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War l There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agricultu…

I rarely mention this these days, but people basically don’t believe me in the US when I describe how we survived the 90s by subsistence framing our little dacha plot. We got good at it too and helped neighbors survive couple winters. It’s hard to explain to someone that hasn't lived it what happens when government institutions truly collapse and nothing works. Part of me still wants to plant some potatoes because the store bought ones just don’t taste the same…

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#579

Post by edgyquant »

lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

While you’re not wrong they can be forgiven as they didn’t expect the nation to actually collapse.
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